The Double

Simon James has worked in the same office for years and nobody knows him; even the security guard asks for his badge. Hannah, the woman he loves, lives in the building opposite and he watches her through a telescope. Then someone new starts: James Simon. Same face, same voice, the opposite character. Nobody notices the resemblance. James takes Simon's job, then Hannah, and finally his identity. Richard Ayoade directed. The source is Dostoevsky's 1846 novella The Double. Jesse Eisenberg plays both parts and Mia Wasikowska plays Hannah. The world is deliberately placeless: no country, no year, ageing technology, yellow and noisy corridors. Filming began in London in May 2012. Andrew Hewitt's score uses a chord progression from Schubert's Der Doppelganger. Rotten Tomatoes sits at 83 percent. The worldwide gross stopped at 2.3 million dollars, with 1.27 million from a seventy-one cinema opening in Britain and little from a limited North American release. Who it is for: viewers who like Ayoade's formal humour and dark bureaucratic worlds. Who it is not for: anyone looking for a realistic explanation. The film never even asks where the double came from.